http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9453905/Iranian-state-goes-offline-to-dodge-cyber-attacks.html
and.....
and.....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/04/afghan-parliament-votes-ministers-out
Afghanistan's parliament has voted to remove the country's two top security ministers from their jobs, a move that could disrupt the handover from western to Afghan troops, and destabilise a government already under pressure over corruption.
and.......
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/08/03/nato-blocks-arrest-after-afghan-police-commander-massacres-17-civilians/
According to provincial officials, the commander forced 20 civilians from their homes before he began the executions, and other police under his command reportedly took part in the attack.
The Britain-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported the deaths, but would not speculate on who had fired the mortar shells, adding that they could have been strays from the fighting in nearby Tadamon neighborhood.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NH03Ak04.html
THE ROVING EYE
Obama does Syriana
Pepe Escobar
It took Reuters quite a while to be allowed to report that US President Barack Obama had approved an intelligence finding [1] letting the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) loose in its support for the weaponized "rebels" fighting for regime change in Syria.
By now even fishermen in Fiji knew about this "secret" (not to mention that everyone and his neighbor across Latin America knows a thing or two about the CIA's regime change adventures). Reuters cautiously describes the support as "circumscribed". That's code for "leading from behind".
Whenever the CIA wants to leak something it uses a faithful scribe, such as David Ignatius from the Washington Post. Already on July 18 Ignatius was reproducing his briefing, [2] according towhich "the CIA has been working with the Syrian opposition for several weeks under a non-lethal directive ... Scores of Israeli intelligence officers are also operating along Syria's border, though they are keeping a low profile."
How lovely. How low profile do you get along Syria's borders? An Instagram surrounded by a bunch of grinning truck drivers?
As for the Mossad's "low profile", the spin in Tel Aviv is that Israel is able to "control" the swarm of hardcore Wahhabis and Salafi-jihadis now infesting Syria. Even if that is manifest nonsense, one juicy point is clear; Israel is in bed with al-Qaeda-style Islamists.
What this means is that the Not Exactly Free Syrian Army (FSA), crammed with Muslim Brotherhood diehards and infiltrated by Salafi-jihadis, is following the agenda not only of their financiers and weaponizers - the House of Saud and Qatar - but also Tel Aviv, alongside Washington and its trademark poodles London and Paris. So this is not just a proxy war - it's a multiple, concentric proxy war.
Meet the triangle of death
Tel Aviv's agenda is clear; a weakened Syrian government, an overextended army in disarray, sectarian hatred all around and a relentless slouching towards balkanization. The ultimate goal; not only the Lebanonization, but the Somalization of Syria and environs.
Turkey's agenda remains incredibly murky - apart from the wishful thinking of post-Assad Syria becoming a mild, civilized version of the AKP reign in Ankara (it won't happen).
As reported by ATol for months now, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) until a while ago was running a command and control center in Iskenderun, in Hathay province. Recently, it was finally leaked to Reuters the news of a joint Turkey-Qatar-Saudi Arabia "secret" base in Adana, 100 kilometers from the Syrian border. Adana happens to be the home of Incirlik, the immense NATO base. A local ATol source for weeks has been reporting of frantic cargo movements at Incirlik. It was Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Saud who requested, in person, for the base to be set up, to Ankara's delight.
Ankara-Riyadh-Doha; talk about a triangle of death. Yet the spin from Qatar is once again of the "leading from behind" variety. Turkey is doing the military heavy lifting; the CIA is "hands off"; and Qatar is just taking pictures like an innocent tourist (while directing operations via its military intelligence). The heavy-duty guys are all unspecified "middlemen".
Obama has not authorized a drone war - yet - and the CIA may not be weaponizing the "rebels"; that's the "triangle of death's" business. An inflation of Russian rocket-propelled grenades bought in the black market has been responsible for recent "rebel" surges in Damascus and Aleppo. Now an inflation of shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles and surface-to-air missiles is to be expected; NBC News has already reported about a "gift" of nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles to the FSA - delivered via, where else, Turkey.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are taking no prisoners. No one in Washington seems to be looking back to post-jihad Afghanistan before making a decision. By the way, this is the 1980s Afghan jihad all over again - with Saudi Arabia and Qatar playing the role of Pakistan, the FSA as the glorious mujahideen "freedom fighters" and Obama as Ronald Reagan; the only element missing is Obama approving a "memorandum of notification" to his initial intelligence finding, authorizing Washington to weaponize the freedom fighters and introducing a swarm of drones.
Now that's the recipe for a certified 2013 Hollywood blockbuster.
Riyadh, for its part, is forcing Jordan's King Playstation to install a buffer zone in his territory for the over 100 gangs that comprise the FSA - as revealed by the Saudi-financed al-Quds al-Arabi. And guess who was the henchman forcing the deal? No less than vanishing Saudi intel chief Prince Bandar, who may or may not have been killed in a bomb attack two weeks ago (seeWhere is Prince Bandar?, Asia Times Online, August 2, 2012).
http://www.debka.com/article/22239/Syrian-fighter-jets-strike-Aleppo-Assad-rides-crest-of-disintegrating-country
http://www.juancole.com/2012/08/revolutionaries-in-syria-claim-60-of-aleppo-as-un-condems-al-assad.html
http://soberlook.com/2012/08/irans-economic-crisis-escalates.html?utm_source=BP_recent
and...
http://www.tehrantimes.com/politics/100268-mps-admirals-to-discuss-strait-of-hormuz-.
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TEHRAN – During a meeting on Sunday (today) the MPs sitting on the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee and the commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Naval Force and the Iranian Navy the latest developments in regard to the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz will be discussed.
Reza Taghipour, the country's telecommunications minister, said the step was being taken because sensitive intelligence was vulnerable on the worldwide web, which he said was untrustworthy because it was controlled by "one or two" countries hostile to Iran.
"The establishment of the national intelligence network will create a situation where the precious intelligence of the country won't be accessible to these powers," Mr Taghipour told a conference on Sunday at Tehran's Amir Kabir University.
He described the move as the first phase of a project to replace the global internet with a domestic intranet system scheduled to be completed within 18 months.
Opponents have previously denounced the plan as a means of stamping out western influence on the internet while further tightening already stringent online surveillance of political activists and regime critics.
While Iranian officials have repeatedly spoken about creating their own alternative to the internet, the latest announcement follows the upheaval wreaked by Stuxnet and Flame, both of which are believed to have been developed jointly by the US and Israel.
and.....
Wartime tasks split: US to smash Iran’s missiles, Israel tackle Syria, Hizballah
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 5, 2012, 1:38 PM (GMT+02:00)
Iran's Fateh-110 missile
An authoritative US military source told DEBKAfile Sunday, Aug. 5 that the American armed forces are standing ready for war with Iran. Without going into the thorny question of who should lead the operation to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, the US or Israel, it is understood that one of the US Air Force’s tasks will be to destroy Iran’s Shehab-3 ballistic missile batteries which have Israel and Saudi Arabia within range.
This task is not as formidable as Iranian spokesmen would have the world believe. Tehran’s entire stock of those missiles is no more than 30-40. That quantity is not nearly enough to take on the entire gamut of potential wartime foes, the United States Middle East bases, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Turkey. They would quckly be picked off by American Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Systems and Israeli Arrow guided interceptor rockets, which are synchronized through the advanced US X-Band radar systems installed in the Israeli Negev and southeast Turkey.
This task is not as formidable as Iranian spokesmen would have the world believe. Tehran’s entire stock of those missiles is no more than 30-40. That quantity is not nearly enough to take on the entire gamut of potential wartime foes, the United States Middle East bases, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Turkey. They would quckly be picked off by American Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Systems and Israeli Arrow guided interceptor rockets, which are synchronized through the advanced US X-Band radar systems installed in the Israeli Negev and southeast Turkey.
In any case, it is hard to believe that Iran would empty its entire ballistic missile arsenal in a single blazing assault at the start of war. “They are too canny to leave themselves without some Shehabs in reserve for crises even more acute than the outbreak of war,” said the US military source.
He went on to explain that by wiping out the Shehabs, the US high command would leave the Israeli Air Force free to take on the thousands of rockets Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami have stored ready for shooting in support of an Iranian missile offensive - not just against Israel, but Turkey and Jordan as well.
He went on to explain that by wiping out the Shehabs, the US high command would leave the Israeli Air Force free to take on the thousands of rockets Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami have stored ready for shooting in support of an Iranian missile offensive - not just against Israel, but Turkey and Jordan as well.
Saturday, the Iranian Defense Minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, announced that his ministry’s aerospace industries had successfully test-fired the fourth generation of high-precision Fateh-110 missiles with a range of over 300km.
He said that the new missiles can hit and destroy both land and sea targets, enemy concentration points, command centers, missile sites, ammunition dumps, radars and other targets with 100 percent precision.
DEBKAfile’s military sources add that the Fateh-110 is the core weapon Syria and Hizballah have stocked for destroying strategic targets in Israel, Jordan and Turkey.
Sunday, Aug. 5, a senior Israeli defense official reported that Israel is upgrading its Arrow II ballistic missile shield, designed to intercept medium range rockets and fill the gaps left by Iron Dome. The announcement in Tehran was taken in Israel as a threat and an indication that the improved Fatah-110 had already been dispatched to its Damascus and Beirut destinations, so exacerbating the perils of Syria’s Scud missiles and chemical weapons which its government has threatened to use against external enemies.
He said that the new missiles can hit and destroy both land and sea targets, enemy concentration points, command centers, missile sites, ammunition dumps, radars and other targets with 100 percent precision.
DEBKAfile’s military sources add that the Fateh-110 is the core weapon Syria and Hizballah have stocked for destroying strategic targets in Israel, Jordan and Turkey.
Sunday, Aug. 5, a senior Israeli defense official reported that Israel is upgrading its Arrow II ballistic missile shield, designed to intercept medium range rockets and fill the gaps left by Iron Dome. The announcement in Tehran was taken in Israel as a threat and an indication that the improved Fatah-110 had already been dispatched to its Damascus and Beirut destinations, so exacerbating the perils of Syria’s Scud missiles and chemical weapons which its government has threatened to use against external enemies.
and.....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/04/afghan-parliament-votes-ministers-out
Afghan parliament votes ministers out
MPs pass votes of no confidence in defence minister and interior minister, sparking fears for
stability of government
stability of government
Email
MPs criticised Bismillah Khan Mohammadi (left) and Abdul Rahim Wardak (right) for security lapses. Photograph: S. SABAWOON/EPA
Afghanistan's parliament has voted to remove the country's two top security ministers from their jobs, a move that could disrupt the handover from western to Afghan troops, and destabilise a government already under pressure over corruption.
MPs passed votes of no confidence in the defence minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, and the interior minister, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, criticising them on Saturday for failing to prevent cross-border shelling from Pakistan and security lapses that contributed to the murder of a northern MP at his daughter's wedding last month.
President Hamid Karzai's office issued a statement acknowledging the vote, which neither condemned nor endorsed it. He promised a decision on the ministers' future after a meeting of his national security council on Sunday.
The ministers may stay in power, as Karzai has effectively ignored previous parliamentary votes against some of his ministerial candidates by appointing them in an acting capacity then leaving them on the job for months at a time.
But he has recently promised both his people and the international community a clean-up of the country's notoriously corrupt government.
"The president has to introduce [new candidates] before a month is up," said Kabul MP Arfanullah Arfan. "We are concerned that it shouldn't be like it was in the past, when acting ministers spent a long time in their jobs. If this happens again, parliament will take a very serious decision."
Wardak, who has been defence minister for nearly eight years and was previously deputy minister, has strong support from western powers in Afghanistan, and with their help has has overseen the expansion of the army's ranks to over 185,000.
In the 1980s he fought against the Soviet and Afghan government troops as a mujahideen commander. He has also studied in the US, and speaks fluent English.
Mohammadi, who also fought as a mujahideen commander, is an ethnic Tajik from the Northern Alliance power block that fought the Taliban in the 1990s and were key to the group's ousting in 2001. He served as chief of staff to the army from 2002 to 2010, before taking up his current job.
The parliamentary vote came days after an Afghan television station reported that the finance minister, Omar Zakhilwal, another minister who has enjoyed the support of western nations in Afghanistan, had stashed away over $1m (£640,000) in foreign bank accounts.
The report prompted calls for an investigation into Zakhilwal's finances, but he denied any wrongdoing and told the Tolo television channel that the money came from legitimate sources. He had earned up to $1,500 a day as a consultant before taking up his current job in 2009, he added.
and.......
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/08/03/nato-blocks-arrest-after-afghan-police-commander-massacres-17-civilians/
NATO Blocks Arrest After Afghan Police Commander Massacres 17 Civilians
Accuses Locals of 'Taliban Ties' Before Ordering Summary Executions
by Jason Ditz, August 03, 2012
A local Afghan police commander is coming under scrutiny tonight after it was revealed that he rounded up civilians in Uruzgan Province, including children and the elderly, and summarily executed 17 of them on charges of “Taliban ties.”
According to provincial officials, the commander forced 20 civilians from their homes before he began the executions, and other police under his command reportedly took part in the attack.
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of this massacre is that provincial assembly officials say that the commander has not been arrested, because he has long-standing support from NATO occupation forces who would not allow them to move against him. Officials said they have petitioned the Karzai government about past abuses by the commander and are once again calling for his removal.
The attack on civilians was apparently “retaliation” for a recent Uruzgan bombing targeting other police. The national Interior Ministry, which would normally be responsible for reacting to massacres, does not appear likely to do, saying that despite eyewitness accounts and confirmation from top provincial officials they don’t believe the massacre really took place, and they have labeled everyone killed as a Taliban per the police report.
and......
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/08/03/mortar-shells-hit-palestinian-refugee-camp-in-syria-21-reported-dead/
Mortar Shells Hit Palestinian Refugee Camp in Syria, 21 Reported Dead
Where the shelling came from is not known
by John Glaser, August 03, 2012
Mortar shells hit civilian crowds in marketplace in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital of Damascus, killing 21 people as regime forces and rebels continued fighting on Friday.
The Britain-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported the deaths, but would not speculate on who had fired the mortar shells, adding that they could have been strays from the fighting in nearby Tadamon neighborhood.
“We don’t know where the mortars came from, whether they were from the Syrian regime or not the Syrian regime,” said Rami Abdul Rahman, director of SOHR.
Syria’s state news agency blamed the bombardment on “terrorist mercenaries,” referring to the foreign-backed rebel fighters, some of whom have ties to al-Qaeda.
Where these mortars really came from is not known. It is unlikely that either side would have had an interest in bombing Palestinians, meaning these shells could very well have been strays.
and additional items for Syria - the fog of war particularly foggy , a range of perspectives provided for consideration ....
THE ROVING EYE
Obama does Syriana
Pepe Escobar
It took Reuters quite a while to be allowed to report that US President Barack Obama had approved an intelligence finding [1] letting the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) loose in its support for the weaponized "rebels" fighting for regime change in Syria.
By now even fishermen in Fiji knew about this "secret" (not to mention that everyone and his neighbor across Latin America knows a thing or two about the CIA's regime change adventures). Reuters cautiously describes the support as "circumscribed". That's code for "leading from behind".
Whenever the CIA wants to leak something it uses a faithful scribe, such as David Ignatius from the Washington Post. Already on July 18 Ignatius was reproducing his briefing, [2] according towhich "the CIA has been working with the Syrian opposition for several weeks under a non-lethal directive ... Scores of Israeli intelligence officers are also operating along Syria's border, though they are keeping a low profile."
How lovely. How low profile do you get along Syria's borders? An Instagram surrounded by a bunch of grinning truck drivers?
As for the Mossad's "low profile", the spin in Tel Aviv is that Israel is able to "control" the swarm of hardcore Wahhabis and Salafi-jihadis now infesting Syria. Even if that is manifest nonsense, one juicy point is clear; Israel is in bed with al-Qaeda-style Islamists.
What this means is that the Not Exactly Free Syrian Army (FSA), crammed with Muslim Brotherhood diehards and infiltrated by Salafi-jihadis, is following the agenda not only of their financiers and weaponizers - the House of Saud and Qatar - but also Tel Aviv, alongside Washington and its trademark poodles London and Paris. So this is not just a proxy war - it's a multiple, concentric proxy war.
Meet the triangle of death
Tel Aviv's agenda is clear; a weakened Syrian government, an overextended army in disarray, sectarian hatred all around and a relentless slouching towards balkanization. The ultimate goal; not only the Lebanonization, but the Somalization of Syria and environs.
Turkey's agenda remains incredibly murky - apart from the wishful thinking of post-Assad Syria becoming a mild, civilized version of the AKP reign in Ankara (it won't happen).
As reported by ATol for months now, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) until a while ago was running a command and control center in Iskenderun, in Hathay province. Recently, it was finally leaked to Reuters the news of a joint Turkey-Qatar-Saudi Arabia "secret" base in Adana, 100 kilometers from the Syrian border. Adana happens to be the home of Incirlik, the immense NATO base. A local ATol source for weeks has been reporting of frantic cargo movements at Incirlik. It was Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Saud who requested, in person, for the base to be set up, to Ankara's delight.
Ankara-Riyadh-Doha; talk about a triangle of death. Yet the spin from Qatar is once again of the "leading from behind" variety. Turkey is doing the military heavy lifting; the CIA is "hands off"; and Qatar is just taking pictures like an innocent tourist (while directing operations via its military intelligence). The heavy-duty guys are all unspecified "middlemen".
Obama has not authorized a drone war - yet - and the CIA may not be weaponizing the "rebels"; that's the "triangle of death's" business. An inflation of Russian rocket-propelled grenades bought in the black market has been responsible for recent "rebel" surges in Damascus and Aleppo. Now an inflation of shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles and surface-to-air missiles is to be expected; NBC News has already reported about a "gift" of nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles to the FSA - delivered via, where else, Turkey.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are taking no prisoners. No one in Washington seems to be looking back to post-jihad Afghanistan before making a decision. By the way, this is the 1980s Afghan jihad all over again - with Saudi Arabia and Qatar playing the role of Pakistan, the FSA as the glorious mujahideen "freedom fighters" and Obama as Ronald Reagan; the only element missing is Obama approving a "memorandum of notification" to his initial intelligence finding, authorizing Washington to weaponize the freedom fighters and introducing a swarm of drones.
Now that's the recipe for a certified 2013 Hollywood blockbuster.
Riyadh, for its part, is forcing Jordan's King Playstation to install a buffer zone in his territory for the over 100 gangs that comprise the FSA - as revealed by the Saudi-financed al-Quds al-Arabi. And guess who was the henchman forcing the deal? No less than vanishing Saudi intel chief Prince Bandar, who may or may not have been killed in a bomb attack two weeks ago (seeWhere is Prince Bandar?, Asia Times Online, August 2, 2012).
The Grim Reaper wins It's worth repeating till the Grim Reaper comes to collect; spectacular blowback looms large.
The prolonged siege of Aleppo is at hand. The NATO-Gulf Cooperation Council "secret base" in Turkey, plus free-for-all weaponizing, are empowering an extremely nasty mix of unemployed, semi-illiterate young Sunni Syrians, sectarian born to kill army defectors, assorted criminals and multinational Salafi-jihadis. This video [3] shows everything one needs to know about the FSA. And this [4] shows what kind of "democracy" they are aiming for.
Saudi Wahhabis want a hardcore Sunni Islamist Syria - complete with Christians, Allawites, Druzes and Kurds as third-rate citizens (or prime candidates for beheading). Qataris want a Muslim Brotherhood protectorate.
The Obama administration's foreign policy makers must be on (lousy) crack. Just because they are engaged on an all-out war against not only Iran, but also Shi'ites all around, how could they possibly bet on a Somalization of Syria profiting Wahhabi intolerance? A grinning Grim Reaper awaits in the wings.
Notes:
1. Exclusive: Obama authorizes secret US support for Syrian rebels, Reuters, August 1, 2012
2.Looking for a Syrian endgame, Washington Post, July 19, 2012
3. See here.
4. Free Syrian Army issues military-led transition plan, AFP, July 30, 2012
The prolonged siege of Aleppo is at hand. The NATO-Gulf Cooperation Council "secret base" in Turkey, plus free-for-all weaponizing, are empowering an extremely nasty mix of unemployed, semi-illiterate young Sunni Syrians, sectarian born to kill army defectors, assorted criminals and multinational Salafi-jihadis. This video [3] shows everything one needs to know about the FSA. And this [4] shows what kind of "democracy" they are aiming for.
Saudi Wahhabis want a hardcore Sunni Islamist Syria - complete with Christians, Allawites, Druzes and Kurds as third-rate citizens (or prime candidates for beheading). Qataris want a Muslim Brotherhood protectorate.
The Obama administration's foreign policy makers must be on (lousy) crack. Just because they are engaged on an all-out war against not only Iran, but also Shi'ites all around, how could they possibly bet on a Somalization of Syria profiting Wahhabi intolerance? A grinning Grim Reaper awaits in the wings.
Notes:
1. Exclusive: Obama authorizes secret US support for Syrian rebels, Reuters, August 1, 2012
2.Looking for a Syrian endgame, Washington Post, July 19, 2012
3. See here.
4. Free Syrian Army issues military-led transition plan, AFP, July 30, 2012
and also ......
Syrian fighter jets strike Aleppo, Assad rides crest of disintegrating country
DEBKAfile Special Report August 4, 2012, 4:04 PM (GMT+02:00)
Syrian MiG bomber-fighters hit Aleppo
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was voicing the general consensus when he said Friday, Aug. 3, “The conflict in Syria is a test of everything this organization stands for.” He stopped short of giving the UN a failed mark. “World powers must overcome their rivalries to end the proxy war in Syria dividing the country into parts, in which different militias fight each other," he said,
Nonetheless, the resolution approved by the general assembly roundly condemned the Assad regime and rapped the Security Council - but had no teeth.
Ban was speaking of a future danger. DEBKAfile reports it is already happening. Day by day, new militias spring up to fight the Assad regime – five in the last 48 hours. They fall into three main categories: they represent one Syrian ethnic minority or another, Islamists streaming in from across the Middle East, or rebels groups armed and backed by Arab and Muslim intelligence bodies.
Ban was speaking of a future danger. DEBKAfile reports it is already happening. Day by day, new militias spring up to fight the Assad regime – five in the last 48 hours. They fall into three main categories: they represent one Syrian ethnic minority or another, Islamists streaming in from across the Middle East, or rebels groups armed and backed by Arab and Muslim intelligence bodies.
Common to them all is contempt for the mainstream Free Syrian Army which insists it is the umbrella organization for the entire rebel movement.
The biggest new paramilitary group rising from Syria’s war-torn landscape is the Kurdish coalition formed by the Syrian Democratic Union Party and elements of the Turkish PKK, which continue to arrive from Iraq and are taking up position on the Syrian-Turkish border. Kurdish fighters are occupying one northern Syrian town and village after another, laying the foundation for an independent Syrian Kurdish state which plans to link up with the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq.
The merger of Syrian and Turkish Kurdish militias with the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga would produce a Kurdish army of 225,000 fighting men.
Terrified that the separatism sweeping its brothers will infect the Turkish Kurdish minority - and suspecting Washington of surreptitiously supporting it - Turkish intelligence, the MIT, was instructed to establish and arm two Turkmen militias in the Syrian Kurdish region: Brigades of Mehmet the Conqueror and Brigades of Sultan Abdulhamid.
The biggest new paramilitary group rising from Syria’s war-torn landscape is the Kurdish coalition formed by the Syrian Democratic Union Party and elements of the Turkish PKK, which continue to arrive from Iraq and are taking up position on the Syrian-Turkish border. Kurdish fighters are occupying one northern Syrian town and village after another, laying the foundation for an independent Syrian Kurdish state which plans to link up with the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq.
The merger of Syrian and Turkish Kurdish militias with the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga would produce a Kurdish army of 225,000 fighting men.
Terrified that the separatism sweeping its brothers will infect the Turkish Kurdish minority - and suspecting Washington of surreptitiously supporting it - Turkish intelligence, the MIT, was instructed to establish and arm two Turkmen militias in the Syrian Kurdish region: Brigades of Mehmet the Conqueror and Brigades of Sultan Abdulhamid.
In Aleppo, the FSA has been displaced at the head of the campaign against government troops by a militia established by the Muslim Brotherhood and a rival set up by radical affiliates of al Qaeda, which is a hodgepodge of jihadists from Libya, the Gaza Strip, and Egyptian Sinai. Saudi and Qatari intelligence services are competing for the favors of these militias by supplying them with arms.American intelligence analysts keeping watch on Syria warned Saturday, Aug. 4, that if the proliferation of fighting militias taking part in the conflict goes on, Syria will soon have more than a hundred mini-armies, some of them Christian and Druze. In no time they will be fighting each other.
American and European military sources explain their reluctance to provide the Syrian rebel movement with heavy anti-tank and anti-air weapons capable of tipping the scales of the fighting in Aleppo by their uncertainty about whose hands they will end up in.
Saturday saw the state of battle in Aleppo undecided. In an attempt to break the tie, Assad sent MiG fighter-bombers to bomb rebel positions in the northern sector of the city. He hopes to recover control of Aleppo well before external powers reach a decision on supplying the rebels with heavy arms.
Saturday saw the state of battle in Aleppo undecided. In an attempt to break the tie, Assad sent MiG fighter-bombers to bomb rebel positions in the northern sector of the city. He hopes to recover control of Aleppo well before external powers reach a decision on supplying the rebels with heavy arms.
In Damascus, Syrian troops backed by dozens of tanks and armored vehicles Friday night stormed Damascus' southern district of Tadamon, the last rebel bastion in the capital. Activists reported that troop were conducting house to house raids and had executed at least 12 people.
and...
Revolutionaries in Syria Claim 60% of Aleppo as UN Condems al-Assad
Posted on 08/04/2012 by Juan
Since the Free Syrian Army is a guerrilla group, whether it can hold the northern metropolis of Aleppo is not absolutely central to its survival. Guerrillas can always fade away to fight another day.
But for the Baath regime of Bashar al-Assad, losing Aleppo would be fatal. The regime controls increasingly little of the country, mainly the capital of Damascus and whatever strips of land the army is actually standing on at any one time. Aleppo is the commercial nerve center of the country, and without it the government will gradually collapse.
The revolutionaries hold most of the east of the city whereas the regime still has the west. But within these enclaves, some support the other side or are on the fence.
In several days of fierce fighting, the regime still has not been able to reassert itself in Aleppo, despite the use of heavy artillery, tanks, helicopter gunships and even fighter jets. Admittedly, the Baath government has not mounted a really big tank assault a la Homs, suggesting it does not have enough tank battalions it trusts to risk sending them away from the capital.
On Saturday morning, the rebels in Aleppo made an attempt to take over the city’s television station (always the first sign of a change in government in a place). Although their attempt was initially repelled by sniper fire, that battle is ongoing. Regime broadcasts appear to have ceased. The regime continues to be on the defensive in Aleppo, which is not a good sign for it.
Heavy fighting is reported in neighborhoods such as Salahuddin. For the mood and the situation in Salahuddin see The Irish Times
Opposition sources say over 4000 persons were killed in the fighting in Syria in July. This monthly total is the highest since the revolt began.
In Damascus, the regime is still apparently battling for control of districts such as Tadamon. A regime mortar attack went astray on Friday and overshot, hitting a Palestinian refugee camp and killing 20. There are 450,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria, families ethnically cleansed by Zionist forces from their homes in Palestine, now Israel, in 1948, and stuck in Syria ever since. The Palestinians are only about 2% of the Syrian population, but they do have some armed groups and could be pushed by the regime into joining the rebels (they have been divided on the revolution, having an uncertain position in the country). The regime blamed the mortars on the rebels, but it is the Baath army that has been deploying mortar fire against civilian city quarters.
On Friday, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolutioncondemning the Syrian regime for using heavy weapons in civilian areas. Russia and China are increasingly isolated in the world community because of their support for al-Assad, and were angry that they lost that vote so decisively. The UNGA vote shows that opposition to al-Assad’s methods is hardly just “Western,” but is rather characteristic of most countries in the world– including many in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
| ||||||||||
as for Iran , march toward a Fall War continues - note the positioning , chess moves , stockpiling of food and probably a last message from UN General Secretary Ban at the end of August ....
http://soberlook.com/2012/08/irans-economic-crisis-escalates.html?utm_source=BP_recent
FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 2012
Iran's economic crisis escalates
Iran's leadership is now openly admitting that the nation is facing an economic crisis. Of course the cause according to them is a "temporary" form of economic "soft war" waged by the US.
Iran's inflation is now out of control. Bloomberg no longer reports Iran's official inflation numbers, but the last reports through April of 2012 show some 24% CPI and runaway food inflation (running at over 5% a month). Keep in mind that this was before the North American drought that sent global agricultural commodities prices flying.FARS: "The economic crisis is, in fact, a war waged by the enemy against Iran after its failure in previous confrontations (against Iran)," Ayatollah Jannati said, addressing a large and fervent congregation of worshippers on Tehran University Campus on Friday.
He said that economic problems will not continue and are limited to a short period, and urged the Iranian nation to resist the West's economic pressure.
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| The last reported changes in Iran's food inflation |
WSJ: - ... it is already apparent that sanctions have had a real effect on Iran's economic health. Statistics issued by Iran's central bank show inflation at 21%, but with the cost of staple goods rising by leaps and bounds, the actual experience of inflation is bound to be graver. The price of bread increased by 40% in the month of June alone, causing a nationwide outcry.The price of chicken and vegetables increased by 3.7% and 10% in a period of just two weeks last month. Iranian households now have to pay on average half of their monthly salaries just to keep food on the table.Iran's central bank is now in a crisis mode.
AFP: - Iran's central bank has established a special cell to fight back against Western economic sanctions that the institution's chief described as "no less than military war," the official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.As the reserves of foreign currency dwindle, the central bank instituted currency controls for the citizens traveling abroad.
"We have established a headquarters in the central bank, which meets on a daily basis" and whose task is "to manage the sanctions," central bank chief Mahmoud Bahmani was quoted as saying.
IRNA: - Governor of Central Bank of Iran Mahmoud Bahmani said on Wednesday travelers will no longer get foreign currency at official rate except for those going to pilgrimage.The abundance of "hard currency" generated from oil and petrochemicals exports in the past had made Iran highly dependent on imports from abroad - from tools and agricultural products to gasoline.
Bahmani told reporters at the end of the Majlis formal session that the decision was made in the joint meeting of the government and Majlis economic teams.
NYTimes: - Western sanctions have hurt, economists say, particularly in denying Iran access to foreign currency reserves, which it had used to prop up the rial. Yet economists also agree that much of the damage to the economy has been self-inflicted, saying that the Ahmadinejad government went on an import spending spree after oil revenues started hitting record levels from 2005 on.Iran will use this opportunity to blame the West and the sanctions for all the economic problems. What's particularly troubling however is that the sanctions are not the only cause of Iran's crisis. Between years of mismanagement and the global spike in food prices it was only a matter of time.
With the government buying so many goods from abroad, many domestic producers were forced to lay off workers and close factories. That, in turn, has made Iran more vulnerable to international sanctions, they say. Companies that might have helped produce goods to replace those blocked by sanctions have long since gone out of business, as the owners shifted their wealth to speculation, building and selling properties, foreign currency or raw materials.
NYTimes: - Many economists, though, say that even without the sanctions, Iran would still have big problems: a legacy of inflationary oil spending and budget-busting state subsidies of food, gasoline and other basic items that encouraged overconsumption and the steady erosion of the country’s industrial base.As the economic crisis escalates, Iran faces increased likelihood of civil unrest and power struggles within the government. The authorities are already preparing an army of trained volunteer thugs to take on protests, all of which would be dealt with and portrayed as an act of foreign aggression.
“Many fundaments of the economy of our country have been destroyed over the past years,” said Mr. Raghfar, the economist. “And now, slowly but surely, the chickens have come home to roost.”
FARS: - Addressing a large gathering of Basij forces here in Tehran on Thursday evening, Jafari pointed to a new formation within the Basij forces known as Salehin Circles, and stated, "One of the main strategies for confronting the soft war of the enemy in cultural, political and social fields is the formation of Basij's Salehin circles."
He added that members of Salehins are taught properly how to confront enemies' cultural, political and social aggression against Iran.The possibility of a fully destabilized Iran is becoming quite real.
and...
http://www.tehrantimes.com/politics/100268-mps-admirals-to-discuss-strait-of-hormuz-.
TEHRAN – During a meeting on Sunday (today) the MPs sitting on the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee and the commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Naval Force and the Iranian Navy the latest developments in regard to the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz will be discussed.
The Strait of Hormuz, between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, is a strategic 20-mile-wide link for Persian Gulf oil-exporting nations and the shipping lanes to oil-importing nations.
and....
http://www.tehrantimes.com/economy-and-business/100248-iran-boosts-strategic-grain-stocks-with-wheat-buy
| Iran boosts strategic grain stocks with wheat buy |
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http://tehrantimes.com/economy-and-business/100249-eu-council-de-lists-bank-mellat-chairperson
| EU Council de-lists Bank Mellat chairperson |
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The Council of the European Union on August 3 reversed its decision to place sanctions against Dr Ali Divandari, the chairperson of Bank Mellat, the largest private bank in Iran.
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TEHRAN – United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will attend the XVI Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, which is scheduled to be held in Tehran from August 26 to 31, Iranian Vice President Ali Saeedlou announced on Saturday.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/tightening-the-noose-on-iran/
Tightening the Noose on Iran
New sanctions on the Islamic Republic stack the deck for war.
Over the past two weeks there has been something like a competition between Republicans and Democrats to see who can do more for Israel by hyping Iran as a threat. Mitt Romney fired the first shot while speaking at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, accusing the president of “undermining” Israel and citing the Islamic Republic as the world’s greatest threat. Barack Obama fired back with a public signing of the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act, coupled with a leaked report that his national security adviser, Thomas Donilon, had briefed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the details of U.S. plans to attack Iran.
Romney then traveled to Israel, where he declared Jerusalem to be its capital, dissed the Palestinians without mentioning them by name, and gave a green light for an Israeli attack on Iran, while pledging to stop Iran from acquiring the capability to engineer a nuclear weapon — something it already has. And he promised to take steps soon, before Tehran can harden its nuclear sites.
Obama’s countermove was to send Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to Israel just after Romney departed to reassure the Israelis that the White House is serious about using force against Iran.
Moving on to phase two, Republicans and Democrats together are tightening the screws on Iran. On July 25, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hosted a session on “Iran’s support for terrorism in the Middle East” that featured leading neoconservatives Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center, and Matthew Levitt of the AIPAC-spawned Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). Six days later, President Obama issued an executive order blocking transactions from several Iranian banks and blacklisting other foreign banks that facilitate the purchase of Iranian oil, while the State Department issued its annual Country Reports on Terrorism for 2011. Announcing the release of the report, Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, State’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, opined that “Iran is and remains the preeminent terrorism sponsor in the world.” On Wednesday there was a vote in the House of Representatives on the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, House Resolution 1095. It had 364 co-sponsors and passed by a vote of 421 to 6. It will now go to the Senate where it could well pass unanimously.
It should surprise no one that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has been operating to increase pressure on Iran. There has been a series of letters and fact sheets advising Congress on the issue since the first draft of HR 1095 surfaced last year. It is generally believed that the bill was actually written by AIPAC. The following letter was sent to every congressman on Tuesday, on the eve of the vote on the Iran Threat Reduction Act. It was sent out on AIPAC letterhead and was signed by Executive Director Howard Kohr and two other AIPAC officers:
July 31, 2012Vote Yes – The Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (H.R.1905)
Dear Representative,
We write in strong support of H.R. 1905, The Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012. The legislation, authored by Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Howard Berman, will be considered by the House on Wednesday. We strongly urge you to vote YES.
In an effort to dissuade Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, the House overwhelmingly passed in December the Iran Threat Reduction Act which tightened sanctions on Iran. The version that has now emerged from House-Senate negotiations includes the strongest set of sanctions ever enacted to isolate any country with which we were not in armed hostilities. H.R. 1905 incorporates legislative initiatives of many members from both the House and Senate and will: place virtually all of Iran’s energy, financial, and transportation sectors under U.S. sanction. Companies conducting business with Iran in these sectors face losing access to U.S. markets; impose sanctions designed to prevent Iran from repatriating any proceeds from its oil sales, thus depriving Iran of 80 percent of its hard currency earnings and half of the funds to support its national budget; impose tough new sanctions on the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC); target Iran’s use of barter transactions to bypass sanctions, the provision of insurance to Iran’s energy sector, and the provision of specialized financial messaging services to the Central Bank of Iran; click here to learn more about the legislation and how it will raise the pressure on Iran.
In the past six months, the United States and our international partners have substantially increased the economic pressure on Iran and engaged in several rounds of talks with Tehran. Unfortunately, Iran has rebuffed the opportunity for serious negotiations while stepping up the pace of its nuclear program.
America and our allies must unite in a tough response to Iran’s belligerent approach. We must continue to send a strong message to Tehran that it will face unremitting pressure until it complies with its international obligations and end its nuclear weapons quest.
We strongly support The Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (H.R. 1905) and urge you to vote YES on Wednesday.
The letter demonstrates how AIPAC operates, and it makes several points to support its contention that Iran is a major threat, arguments that are either flat-out wrong or greatly exaggerated. Not surprisingly, these arguments have been picked up in the media and by members of Congress and have been repeated nearly verbatim as if they were fact.
The letter boasts of “the strongest set of sanctions ever enacted to isolate any country with which we were not in armed hostilities placing virtually all of Iran’s energy, financial, and transportation sectors under U.S. sanction.” Why? “Because Iran has rebuffed the opportunity for serious negotiations” and it has not complied “with its international obligations and end its nuclear weapons quest.” After the vote, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who had co-sponsored the bill, echoed those sentiments, stating that the legislation “seeks to tighten the chokehold on the regime beyond anything that has been done before.”
The 144-page Iran Threat Reduction Act enhances existing sanctions in a number of areas while also establishing new legal authority to go after anyone who provides equipment or technology or facilitates oil sales. The act’s critics claim it does not go far enough, with Mark Dubowitz of the neocon Foundation for the Defense of Democracies calling for “comprehensive economic warfare. Everything must be prohibited unless it is permitted.” Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute puts it another way: “This is time for the mallet, not fine needle surgery … our purpose is to bring them to the table to give up their nuclear ambitions.” Even J Street, which claims to support Israel while seeking peace in the Middle East, commended the bill.
Lest there be any confusion, the new bill — coming on top of previous legislation and executive orders, not to mention the covert Stuxnet and Flame computer viruses — sets the stage for war against Iran, a country that has not attacked the United States nor threatened to do so unless it is attacked first. Supporters of the bill and many commentators on it copy the language used by AIPAC, citing Iran’s purported quest for a nuclear weapon as their fundamental argument for the sanctions regime and possible military intervention. If this seems reminiscent of the lead up to war against Iraq in 2003, it should.
There is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear-weapons program. It is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, its nuclear sites are regularly inspected by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, none of its low-level enriched uranium has been diverted, it has a legal right to enrich uranium for use in power plants, and its political leadership has declared that it is not seeking a weapon. The CIA and Israel’s Mossad agree that Iran has no program to produce a nuke.
Regarding the negotiations between Iran and the U.S. over its nuclear energy program, there is certainly enough mud to stick to everyone involved, but Iran has several times proposed compromise solutions whereby its uranium could be shifted out of the country for enrichment to a low level sufficient for its power-generating reactors. These approaches have been rebuffed by the United States, and it is difficult to believe that Washington is seriously seeking a diplomatic solution. Former intelligence officer and Iran specialist Hillary Mann Leverett notes that the United States has hardly spoken to Iranian negotiators since 2008.
Finally, there is the terrorism issue. There is considerable disagreement over whether Iran has been behind recent terrorist attacks on Israeli targets, most particularly as themodus operandi fits al-Qaeda much better. The annual State Department terrorism report struggles to make a case for Iranian support of terrorism but has to resort to citing last year’s plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, an alleged conspiracy that has been thoroughly debunked.
The drive to demonize Iran might well be considered little more than Washington theater of the absurd in an election year, but it is deadly serious. War with Iran might unleash forces best left undisturbed, and the consequences for U.S. forces in the Middle East could be grave. And then there is the frail global economy, which hardly needs an oil shock.
But the beat goes on about the threat posed by Iran, orchestrated by groups like AIPAC and repeated verbatim by politicians and the mainstream media. Evidently the half-truths and out-and-out lies have convinced a lot of people that Iran is rightfully the enemy. A recent poll reveals that fully 80 percent of Americans believe that Iran’s nuclear program threatens the United States, while two thirds of the public thinks sanctions will be ineffective. Most Americans believe incorrectly that Iran already has a nuclear weapon.
To go to war a second time in ten years over nothing would be shameful, but it is clear that no one in Washington who matters is resisting the stampede.
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